


(To be deleted) Heir to The Force: Episode 1: The Desert Rain

by DefiantCandle17



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Abusive father figures in Snoke to Ben and Hux's father to Hux, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Leia Organa, BAMF Luke Skywalker, Badass Rey, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Darkness rises and light to meet it, Devoted Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Eventual Kylo Ren/Rey, Eventual Reylo, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Evil Snoke, F/M, Healing, Hope, Kylo Ren Angst, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo Ren Redemption, Luke fights for the Resistance, M/M, Overcoming Trauma, Poe Dameron/Finn Fluff, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Kylo Ren, Rey Needs A Hug, Rey does not turn to the dark side, Rey is Not a Palpatine, Rey is not a Mary Sue, Rey realises her potential, Rey/Kylo Ren Fluff, Reylo - Freeform, Rise of the Jedi, Slow Burn Rey/Kylo Ren, Snoke doesn't fuck around, Snoke is something much worse than Palpatine or Nihilus, Wholesome Reylo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:21:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23537554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefiantCandle17/pseuds/DefiantCandle17
Summary: This series will not be continued and will be deleted within the next few days.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 15
Kudos: 45





	(To be deleted) Heir to The Force: Episode 1: The Desert Rain

**Author's Note:**

> So, I messed up my body clock writing the majority of this fanfiction introduction chapter because it had to be written. My ADD, if I actually do have it or perhaps I have a lousy sense of priority, commanded that I write this immediately after I uploaded an interlude chapter for The Dragon Queen.
> 
> Please let me know what you think. I don't plan to be as hardcore in this story as I have been in the others, but then again, I've never been one to hold back, so do not judge me if I end up bumping this up to explicit.
> 
> This chapter was inspired by Raign's song Who Are You, in which the lyrics that include the words Standing in the Desert Rain, where Rey sees Kylo in a force vision killing a man with a wide-rimmed hat on what must have been Jakku. I originally heard it on a Jonerys fan account on Instagram but made the connection to Reylo because of the lyrics. Curiously, it also reminds me of the Eros and Psyche Love Story in Greek Mythology...
> 
> This story and series has been formulating in my mind for some time and I do not know when I will return to it.  
> I will however say this.  
> This is fully canon divergent and will follow and shun parts of the Sequel Trilogy to my heart's desire.  
> Rey is not a Palpatine.  
> Snoke will be a permanent and consistent villain and big bad to be killed.  
> Kylo Ren is not as monstrous or as creepy or abusive as he is in the films. The script for Rise of Skywalker and the original script for Duel of the Fates will be ignored.  
> Inspiration will be drawn on ironically from the events of the Sequel Trilogy as well as the script for Duel of the Fates.  
> Finn and Poe get together.  
> The Knights of Ren have been remade, renamed and given newer more disturbing personalities.  
> A new order of the Inquisitorius will appear in the near future.  
> References. So many, many many references will be made.
> 
> Trigger Warnings for this chapter  
> References to slavery, abuse and traumatic pasts as well as mental and emotional trauma will be referenced. Please be discreet and considerate with who you share this with. The depiction of mental illnesses surrounding certain characters is not to be exploitative or to fetishize mental illness in any way shape or form.  
> Strong graphic violence involving knives, limb removal and universe typical violence will be involved.
> 
> Please enjoy, spread the word if you liked it with care and let me know what you think"
> 
> That or you could all poodle along and read Fix Your Attitude like the depraved addicts that you Ben/Kylo Ren thirsters are.  
> This will not be like that fic. I haven't read it but judging from the tik-tok videos (yes I have Tik Tok. The D&D vids in particular are a fucking riot) I think its safe to assume that it is very NSFW.  
> Jeeze louise… Fifty Shades of Kylo Ren, here we come...It's already getting a manga adaptation I mean, Jesus...  
> And then one day, a movie...just you wait. If a sado-masochistic Twilight fanfic can get rewritten and made into a series of softcore porn films, just you wait until you see what this fanbase pulls...
> 
> (Says the guy about to potentially do a rewrite of the Sequel trilogy into an angst dark adult fantasy series that essentially betrays and goes against the family friendly ethos of Star Wars.)

“A good hunt as always, Master.” Praetorius Ren appraised Kylo Ren, amongst the bodies of the kyuzo law enforcers. The heavy volume of rain nearly made his vocalised words inelligble, but thankfully the skull- masked warrior spoke loud enough for him to hear.

Nearby, the other black armoured and caped knights were disposing of the survivors. The wide rimmed hats of the kyuzo enforcers marked them as aggressive, stoic warriors who shielded their faces with visors and wraps of cloth. Their heavy guttural tongues and often tall physiologies made them imposing warriors to engage in combat with. This group of enforcers, passing as the militia and the policing force, whose loyalty was likely controlled by whichever junk trader mob boss had the most credits, were no different.

But they were no match for him and the Knights of the Order of Ren.

The rasp of his crimson crossguard lightsaber rattled in the air, sizzling as sparks of rain splashed on the beam of unstable red plasma. Two smaller blades close to the blade served as a hilt guard as a result of his crystal cracking during the bleeding process, the path all dark siders must follow to corrupt their crystal and attune it to their spirit. The design served of course. It evoked the blades wielded by the most aggressive warriors who commanded the Force in the days of the Old Republic, and the Sith Empire.

Tonight, the crusader saber had tasted blood again. As had the blades of the knights of Ren as well.

Kylo looked across the desert field, littered with bodies and blasters and batons and surrounded by low rock plateaus. He could feel the rain seeping into the collar of his rancor leather robe and into his gloves and boots. He had lowered the hood of his sash, allowing him better range of vision under his imposing Vader Helm. With a wide lower rim, a smooth domed helm and a scowling visor with a flat lean mouthguard, his helm also evoked the custom of the sith of old. Complete with his plain black ribbed tunic robe with trousers and boots, he was the image of Vader reincarnated, worthy of carrying on the legacy of the most feared Dark Lord in the entire galaxy.

And as the rain began to weigh down his cloak, he could also feel his frustration build yet again.

The piece of the star map that led to Luke Skywalker was still missing, and the lead that promised that it had landed on Jakku, the planet they were currently on may well have been false. Supreme Leader Snoke would not be pleased, and Hux would sneer and mock him again, and for all his hopes and dreams, Kylo could not simply smash him against the ceiling as a means of silencing him.

Snoke’s stern words and firm chastisement for sinking to such a low level still stung him from the last time he had been disciplined, like a petulant child.

Kylo was not a child. To be fair, he had not destroyed a console in his rage for the past five years. There were such things as meditation, running, drilling with the training droids or fixing something.

Killing officers and incompetent troopers was a waste of men and personnel, and the force choke was used as a punishment rather than a tactic of intimidation. 

A sorcerer’s ways did have their time and place, after all…

But right now, Kylo could not afford failure, at all. Right now, the success of Snoke’s crusade against the last of the Jedi hinged on him. He had to find the star map fragment, and once he brought it to the bridge of the Finaliser, the technicians and navigators could extrapolate a location and the quickest hyper-space jump route to his location.

General Armitage Hux could eat his words and his sour face of envy would smother his snide looks, and Snoke would lay his hand on his shoulder, giving him the fatherly approval and the respect a master of the force was properly due, as he had always given him.

Snoke was the father Kylo knew he deserved.

As for his…father by blood…

  
Too much pain rose up and burned in him, and tears nearly threatened to pool under his eyes at the memory, the very mention of his name… Too much delving would bring forward a painful torrent of memories. Memories he swore he would stuff down, smother and kill.

Memories of anguish, of frustration, shame and failure...

How could he be the son of someone who he could never measure up to in any way-

_Stop._

_Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. It is the only way you can become who you were meant to be._

That was his mantra. Who he was in the past was nothing. A building block. A deluded miserable phrase in which the vain hope of pleasing his family was dangled to him like a root vegetable on a stick in front of a starving Ronto. A regrettable mistake in every way, thanks to the poor mishandling of his training by his cowardly uncle.

Nothing but a delay in the pathway into becoming who he was truly meant to be. A warrior to usher in the glory and the truth of the Dark Side. All Luke could give him was strength and skill with a lightsabre and the command of the force. Snoke perfected him and brought him to mastery and wisdom in ways he could only dream of as a frightened boy.

Kylo looked as the twins, Adara and Aexa gracefully stalked the battlefield, moving as only dancers in a trance. Their vibroblades shone in the dim light of the exposed moon as they haunted the battlefield, spinning and stabbing into the still moving corpses of the survivors.

Elsewhere, Raptorus Ren approached the battlefield, cradling his heavy repeating sniper rifle in his long sleeved-gloved hands. On seeing him, Raptorus slung his rifle onto his back and inclined his head in a stiff bow.

“You struck with precision and speed, Raptorus.” Kylo nodded back.

“You killed with brutality and power, my Lord.” Raptorus formally replied back. “My scopes could not pick out anything of high electro chip calibre amongst this group of enforcers. I made sure to aim for their heads, just in case.”

“Do you fear that perhaps in our haste, we may have destroyed it?” Praetorius asked to both Kylo and Raptorus.

“Unlikely.” Kylo swiftly corrected. “A star-map piece would be small. Sturdy. Easily concealed. We will search the bodies. Keep your scanners active. Use any and every frequency. I will be certain before we move on.” He commanded to Raptorus with a firm point of his finger.

“As you say, Master.” Raptorus replied, and flicked down his visor, tapping commands to switch it to electro-vision. Ideal for hunting droids. Tonight it would hunt data-containing chips. Pads, nodes, anything. Anything that could contain bytes of data or a blueprint. Anything.

“We will sweep these bodies to the utmost, my Lord.” Praetorius obsequiously vowed with a bow of his head.

“Then see it done.” Kylo turned to look imposingly at the overly- flattering knight. Praetorius bowed again and went to work, kneeling in the wet dirt to begin rifling through the pockets of the corpse nearest to him.

Wielder of the Mandalorian Jedi’s Darksaber or not, Praetorius should know better than to seek to constantly ingratiate himself with Kylo, in his unfailing hope to seek a lofty position within the First Order and the favour of Supreme Leader Snoke. His ambition was almost as insufferable as Hux’s. Almost.

He turned to the Twins.

“Adara. Aexa.”

They turned to him as one. Their masks with wide eerie visors that hid their faces above the nose and their figure-hugging lithe forms made them more wraith-like in their presence as they spoke in time to one another. Kylo saw the dark red staining their three-bladed daggers in each of their hands. 

They replied to him in half sentences, owing to their shared mindsets as twins, thanks to their species. The same species that Snoke’s Praetorian guards consisted of.

“The bodies do not speak of carriers of data…” Adara began, her voice light and breezy, as if she was in a state of spice-induced euphoria.

“...They sing of desperation and fear.” Aexa spoke in return, her tone almost as melancholy but lower in pitch and grimmer in tone.

“It was what drew us to them, their songs too beautiful for our blades to ignore…” Adara.

“…some soiled themselves as we took their life.” Aexa.

“Our blades give them such sweet kisses of death...” Adara.

“…But in the end our hunt may be for naught.” Aexa.

“Shall we seek the living amongst the dead, to sing of what they know to us...?” Adara.

“...Or shall we kill them all and seek our answers from their corpses?” Aexa.

Kylo shouldered down the chill that formed in him at the eerie synchronised communication the ‘Twins’ as they were called, shared.

“Take no chances.” He ordered. The most ruthless option was often the safest. “Kill any survivors and search their bodies. If one is able to talk, let him speak. Then let your blades drink.”

“Thank you, Master...” Adara.

“...We value the steel of your soul and deeds.” Aexa.

“You bring us such sweet prey...” Adara.

“...We will not disappoint.” Aexa.

And with that they continued their work. They tilted their heads to detect the aura of life from their prey. The times their blades rose and thrust in the chest and necks of the bodies was becoming less frequent, and Kylo was beginning to perhaps reconsider. Surely someone amongst these enforcers values their life enough to trade information for a few extra seconds.

But then he saw as Adara stood on her blades, stabbing them into the neck of a crawling Kyuzo and slowly cartwheeling over the body like an acrobat, and Aexa stepping gracefully on the chests with her stiletto blades, leaving damp pools of blood in the armoured vests of the guards, finding one to talk as the Twins did their dance of death would be more difficult than he realised. 

He looked out over the sea of bodies, the rain water interfering slightly with his vision, before the heat screen wiped the watery residue from his glass visor. A helpful visor function whose use dated back to the Republic and Imperial Commandos.

“Where is Invictus?”

A sound of a short scream and the heavy swing of a vibro axe embedding into something of metal and fleshy nearby drew his gaze. A brief probe in the force told him that the hulking axe wielding Knight of Ren was nearby.

Kylo strode over, stepping his boots over the bodies, blasters and staffs. Eventually the hulking trenchcoated form of Invictus Ren, with heavy pauldrons covering his shoulders and a red-lit vibro-axe presented its back to him, as he stepped with purpose towards a still alive Kyuzo officer.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The axe-wielder snarled, as the Kyuzo lifted his hand up to beg. He was trailing blood from his leg as he crawled back, sliding through the mud on his scrambling feet and his eblow, as he held his hand up as a feeble shield.

“Nara! Nara eeetek kardova!” The Kyuzo begged. His large eyes under his veil were wide, devoid of its scowl. He was afraid.

“I’m sorry…” Invictus growled with feigned sincerity, and hefted the huge blade of his axe to his right shoulder as he closed the distance. “I don’t speak alien scum.”  
“Nara! Eeektak!”

“Wait…” Kylo ordered- but too late.

The Kyuzo screamed and turned away as the black vibro-axe lifted into the air and swung down. The tip of the large blade embedded into the alien’s chest, silencing his scream with a metallic crunch and a fountain of dark viscous blood splattered up as Kylo looked away.

Kylo turned to Invictus as he pulled at the blade, which was lodged in the officer’s chest. It stuck, and Invictus snarled, lifting his boot onto the Kyuzo’s chest as he pulled with his arms and wrenched the axe free.

With a dull shake, Invictus dislodged the gore from his blade, and looked over at him. His visor design was two large eye holes, similar to Praetorius and the Twins, but more robust in its design, with two bug-eyed spheres protruding from his helm and a mandible grate like the jaws of an insectoid predator.

“You wanted something, Master?” The brute insolently spoke in his gruff voice.

“We are leading a search for sensitive data.” Kylo firmly spoke. “Not an execution hunt.”

“Makes no difference to me.” Invictus spoke, wiping down his blade half-heartedly with the back of his glove, not meeting his eye. “You’re the one who gave the order and we did what we did best. And I like…doing what I do best.”

He looked down at the bodies around him.

“I mean, look at them. There’s a reason humans are in charge of the First Order and not these…backward alien freaks we have to share the galaxy with. Far as I see it, we’re doing Snoke, the dark side incarnate’s honest work, and that’s the truth.”

Kylo resisted the urge to lift and force-choke the racist brute until he collapsed. They were here on a mission. He would pay for his carelessness later on.

“We are searching for a valuable and likely delicate piece of data that will help us end the Last Jedi.” He spoke in a low and dangerous voice, edging closer to him. Invictus was taller and broader in shoulder than Kylo was, a hulking monster, but even he knew better than to trifle with a wielder of the force.

“If you hack every one of these men and their bodies apart, you could risk damaging the only hope we have of finding Luke Skywalker.”

He stepped closer, knowing that his snarling blade would communicate his position of authority as the undisputed master. Invictus took a step back, and Kylo knew he was the one in power here.

“And if that does happen, if your bloodlust costs us the war with the Resistance, then you will personally answer for it in the presence of the Supreme Leader.”

He was now close enough to look up at the wide-armed brute, so he spoke in a softer voice.

“Have you seen what happens when a man has his mind turned inside out. A lobotomy would be a kind understatement…compared to what Snoke did to the last officer who displeased him.”

Invictus understood well enough. He turned, the slight tremor in his head easily noticeable.

Invictus was a brute and a man who dominated in violence and carnage, but he feared the supernatural and strange unexplainable influences on the mind, and that fear kept him in check.

“What…is your bidding…master?” He hesitantly spoke.

Satisfied, Kylo relayed his orders.

“Search the bodies. Thoroughly. I’m sure even your meaty fingers are dextrous enough to pick up a data chip or a node that contains a holographic star map of sorts. If there is anyone left alive, which I highly doubt at this point, then you will-”

A distant alien shout, coupled with a shout from Raptorus behind him, made Kylo glance back and then forward in the direction of the shout.

It sounded like…

“We missed one!” Raptorus shouted as he stomped over, loading a glowing purple ammo clip into his gun before snapping it shut. “He’s over there, by the rocks. Twenty degrees North.”

“Do you have a shot?” Kylo asked.

“…I don’t. Not a clean one.”

“What do you mean?” Kylo turned to Raptorus. 

“He has a hostage, sir.”

“A hostage? Since when do those actually concern us?” Invictus blithely spoke.

The wet soggy steps of Praetorius and the eerie patter of the Twins as they glided across the ground, intrigued by the approach of fresh prey heralded their arrival. They stopped and flanked him, standing next to the brute as Raptorus flanked him on his left.

Together, they awaited the figure to step out of the misty gloom of the rainstorm.

The wide hat of the kyuzo survivor could be seen on top of the two bodies, joined close together. The person on the left was struggling, and Kylo could see a hooded head struggling viciously in his grasp.

The officer stepped closer, and Kylo could see him in greater detail, his form becoming clearer for him. 

The kyuzo officer was holding a woman in dirty grey robes that clung to her legs and chest from the rain. His right arm, holding a long baton, was pressed against the woman’s neck, holding her in place while his left drilled his undoubtedly illegally modified blaster into the side of her skull. 

Kylo couldn’t see the woman’s face, but found himself wondering at the mismatched yet elegantly attired clothing she wore.

The robes…

She looks almost like a rogue jedi…

Her outer robes appeared to be white, or they used to be, until time in the desert likely sullied them. She wore two belts, one of them sagging to her right hip. under which her simple wraps of light beige cloths, one for both her shoulders, covered the white under tunic on her body under her arms and slid under to trail like a tattered skirt around her legs.

Her legs were exposed below the knee, as she wore thick trousers that were rolled up to her knees, and she wore boots that covered her ankles. Her arms were wrapped in grey bandages, and on her left wrist she wore a brown leather brace. 

The Kyuzo stopped, close enough for him to see, but far enough to be out of reach of the weapons of the knights of Ren.

“Yyaateh yeez Granath! Ehta!” The desperate kyuzo spoke. The barrel of his pistol, a thin snouted DL-18 without the cylindrical vent at its end and the scope fixer on top, left the woman’s head and pointed randomly the knights, hovering from one knight to the other. In his panicked state, the hostage taker didn’t have a target. He was simply threatening them with the fact that he had a weapon and he would use it if he was pushed.

The woman grunted, and tried to break free, and the kyuzo’s wide eyes flickered down at the girl and pulled her tighter to his chest. The woman’s legs kicked out from under her, helplessly scuffing against in the wet sandy dirt.   
“Yyaateeh gunah et veen! Yyetah!”

“I don’t understand.” Raptorus whispered through their helm comms. “Why didn’t he just run when he had the chance?”

“He probably thinks we’re mercenaries. Bounty hunters to settle a gambling debt perhaps.” Praetorius’s eloquently spoken voice replied back. 

“Huh?! Gwernesh de beethta! Huh?!” The kyuzo was getting even more desperate.

“Raptorus.” Kylo spoke, remaining still and addressing him without moving his head. Any sudden movements and the Kyuzo would get a shot off. “Can your visor translate what he’s saying.”

“What do you think I look like? A member of Clone Force 99?” Raptorus impatiently snapped back.

“Can you translate what he’s saying or not?” Kylo replied, his ire stoked at the sniper’s impudence.

“I can’t. My visor is only good for destruction, not intergalactic etiquette.”

Kylo gritted his teeth, but said nothing. He offered the question to his other knights.

“Does anyone speak Kyuzo?”

“I’m afraid my language skills, despite my vast array of knowledge do not cover systems of the outer rim.” Praetorius snobbishly replied.

_Perfect._

Kylo suppressed his sigh of exasperation as the Kyuzo officer holding his hostage held his pistol, erratically shifting from one knight to the other.

The only reason the Kyuzo didn’t run must be because of what Praetorius suggested. That he was in deep with some serious debts or wrong committed against the various criminal junk traders littering this desert planet in the middle of nowhere.

“Janeshta Unkar Plutt? Janeshta Unkar Plutt?!” The Kyuzo demanded.

“Uncle Pratt?” Invictus spoke.

“Unkar Plutt.” Kylo corrected with a sharp tone in his voice. “We’ve had dealings with him before. Miserly Crolute who often needs to be strong-armed to part with his Imperial findings.”

Jakku was once one of the last battlegrounds of the Galactic Civil War between the Rebels and the Empire, and from the ruins of the ships that crashed into the dunes and sinkholes of the great desert, the scavengers and nobodies who found themselves here found their fortune and their livelihoods. Amongst them, the strongest, the most cunning and the cruellest prospered the most, and the blubbery Unkar Plutt was one of them.

“Veginera mishta ladus!” The Kyuzo snarled, and looking down at the woman in his arms, he pressed her harshly against his chest and pressed the gun to her temple again.

“Metio neh dara, cuulo Rey, caturlo! Mera dan bora cartulo hintra!”

Kylo wasn’t fluid in every single language in the galaxy, much less the Outer Rim, but he could deduce from the names he heard and his desperate nature what he needed to know.

“He thinks we were hired by this Unkar Plutt to kill him.” Kylo deduced. “And he thinks that he can use this woman…who must be connected to him somehow, as a bargaining chip to buy his life, and likely, revenge against the man who ordered the attempt on his life.”

“So this girl.” Raptorus’s cool voice spoke. “She’s what…his slave girl? One of his scavengers?”  
“Possibly.” Kylo replied.

“That scrawny thing?” Invictus mocked. “What kind of woman thinks it her place to pick apart the bones of star destroyers for mouldy rations? Women are too delicate for that kind of work.”  
“A desperate place makes desperate people.” Praetorius offered. “Clearly, you have never been to Nar Shadaa on Life Day…”

“Quiet!” Kylo urged harshly. 

“Kepreeh un dolgo! Echoota! Unkar Plutt esta maja poodoo!” the officer spoke, stamping his foot as he spoke.

“I think we know what that word meant…” Praetorius suggested.

“Reteerah…” The masked Kyuzo’s eyes darted. He lifted his thumb to pull the hammer back on his pistol.

“He’s going to fire.” Kylo spoke, his grip tightening on his lightsabre. “Raptorus, you sure you don’t have a clean shot.”

“This is a disruptor rifle. Even if I aim for his head, the phasing of the bolt will fry both their heads.” There was a click and a slight whining sound as his thumb switched off the safety and adjusted the rate of fire with the pin next to the trigger.

“Besides what’s the point. Why do we need her alive?”

A valid question. Kylo reflected. Perhaps…

The wind blew behind them, stirring up his cloak and the flowing robes of his knights.

The kyuzo blinked and dipped his round shaped helmet to stop the rain from blinding him.

And the wind blew the hood of the woman back across her head.

Kylo was ready to give the command for Raptorus to fire.

But the order never came.

He was distracted by the woman’s face.

The pale-skinned woman looked young. Young enough to be in her twenties. She had straight eyebrows that gently curved downward above her dark hazel eyes. Her nose was thin and long, and her cheekbones were wide, giving her a elegant frame to her face and her small mouth.

The woman’s eyes were nearly clenched shut, and Kylo could see that she was crying, even with the heavy rainfall on her face. She sobbed and struggled again, but the fight was going out of her. Or perhaps, the fight had left her a long time ago. Kylo saw that she had an impressive physique with strong looking arms. She could have easily overpowered the Kyuzo. There was a hardy determination behind those eyes that Kylo knew existed in them, there in the snarl of her teeth as she struggled to break free.

This wasn’t her. This helplessness…it didn’t become her. She looked…no…was strong. But in her heart…

Kylo felt her. Felt the bitter miserable anger that clothed her soul and dampened her spirit. She was a fighter and a survivor, and whatever happened, she was determined to not give in to despair, giving it her all until she reached the end. And right now it appeared as though that end was in sight.

And the pain…the fear…the grief…the loneliness…

_Help me…_  
_Her voice…soft and pleading in his mind._  
_Please…help me._

A gasp came from her that sounded like a hiccup and a sob. The officer was holding her to harshly, and her grip on his arms was beginning to falter.

Raptorus was speaking to him.

“…ers, sir…”

_At night…Desperate to sleep…_

_Nowhere to go back to…nowhere to go forward to…_

_Just stay here and rot until my bones bleach in the sun, like everyone else here…_

“Sir!”

  
Kylo was startled out of his thoughts. He had reached out into her unguarded mind so deeply and so easily…it was if it was subconscious…he wasn’t even aware that he was doing it until…

“What are your orders, sir? Do I fire?” Raptorus spoke.

Kylo felt the tensity building in his other knights. They were ready to move, ready to strike. This uneven stalemate would not last forever.

And this woman’s life hung in the balance.

So Kylo decided.

“Adara, Aexa. Ready your throwing knives. Aim for his hands when I give you an opening.” He whispered to them on the comms.

To Praetorius, he decided on something that would make the pompous fraud useful.

“Praetorius, when I give the order, draw your Darksaber and wave it in the air.”

“What?” the second in command knight spoke. “But I…” 

“Just do it!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Kylo saw Praetorius slowly reach towards his belt.

“Raptorus, when the girl is free, shoot off his blaster hand.”

“As you say, Master.”

“Ready…” Kylo asked his knights. Inside, he felt the surge of adrenaline and fear from Praetorius as he made ready to ignite his darksaber, and the others tensed as they prepared themselves. 

“What do you want me to do?” Invictus asked.

“Nothing. Stay still and look intimidating.” Kylo replied.

An irritated growl from the brute made him grin inside.

The Kyuzo panted as his aim began to tremble. His nerves and his fatigue was getting to him. He would have to make a shot now or crumble from the exhaustion.

His pistol hovered near Kylo’s direction.

“Now!”

_Bwee-Foom!_  
The familiar smooth sound of the ancient sword being drawn to his right told Kylo that Praetorius had drawn his sword. A glance to his right saw a glimpse of the knight holding the sword aloft in the sky.

The DL-18 turned and barked once. A red stream of plasma from the smuggler’s pistol sped through the air. Praetorius grunted as the bolt smashed into one of his armour plates and he fell.

The Twins threw their arms forward and two small objects small and sharp whistled through the air.

_Thunk-Thunk!_

“Aargh!” The Kyuzo yelled, his arms bleeding from the kaminoan darts protruding from his hands and wrists. His arms lifted. The girl tumbled out of his arms and onto the dirt, behind the Kyuzo.

“Take him!” Kylo yelled.

Raptorus’s rifle went off. At this close range, the heavily modified MWC-35C 'Staccato Lightning' Repeating Canon, adapted to serve as a disruptor sniper rifle would have easily blasted the Kyuzo enforcer in half, or left a smoking hole where his head once was.  
Instead the white bolt shot through the air with a ugly belching sound, and the whole of the Kyuzo’s left hand holding the smuggler’s pistol exploded at the wrist. 

Pieces of the pistol and the hand that held it splashed into the wet dirt as the Kyuzo spun around screaming in agony, his left arm trailing smoke in the rainy air as he showed his back to them and still holding his baton up in the air with his right hand.

Kylo moved.

Lunging forward, Kylo crossed the gap, aimed his snarling lightsabre low and thrust-

His lightsabre cut through the cheap metal armour of the enforcer with only the slightest of resistance before cutting through, impaling the Kyuzo through his back and spine. The enforcer cried out in the air once. Kylo felt the life in him go. 

Then he slumped forward.

Kylo withdrew the rattling blade from the Kyuzo’s back, and the officer fell forward onto his front with a wet splash of dirt and water.

Kylo let out a shaky breath, and between him and the knights only silence and the heavy patter of rain water followed.

“Well executed, Master.” Invictus appraised. 

“A swift execution...” Adara.

“...Flawlessly conducted.” Aexa.

“Felt a bit like overkill, but I’ve seen worse.” Raptorus spoke.

“You mean we’ve done worse…” Invictus snarled, and Kylo knew he was grinning under his bug-eyed mask.

“Ow…” Praetorius offered. Kylo spared a glance to see the knight struggling to his feet, a smoking red hole where his right pauldron was. 

“The Beskar hold?” Kylo asked.

“Yeah, it held…” Praetorius winced. “Still stung like a karkin…”

“Careful, Praetorius, your ‘high born’ Coruscant underlevel street rat side is showing.” Raptorus dryly observed. Invictus chuckled nastily.

Praetorius muttered something under his breath that his helmet’s vocal modulators didn’t quite pick up, muffled by the rain, but Kylo didn’t ask him to repeat that as the knight stood swaying to his feet, nursing his shoulder. He turned and picked up his deactivated Dark Saber, wiping off the sand and mud.

“If sand got into my lightsabre, I swear to Mandalore…”

Mandalore. The namesake of the warrior race with whom their home planet shared a name. The Mandalorians were a group of armoured warriors defined by their code of honour, their society ruled by clans and their access to powerful weaponry. Their existence in the galaxy was marked as a period of war and deep unrest within the galaxy, as their warrior tribes took to the skies and sought to conquer the Core Systems, clashing with the Jedi Knights who shepherded those systems. 

In the end, all that remained of those clans were nomadic tribes and warriors. The enduring blueprint of their legacy was the t-visored helmets of the stormtroopers, their white armoured corps enduring long after the hayday of the Empire, who in turn took over from the clones of one Mandalorian. But more importantly, their materials used in the days of the Old Republic survived. Namely,

Beskar Steel, the alloy used to forge their near-indestructible armour capable of blocking a lightsabre and most blaster bolts.

Such steel was what decorated the robes of the Knights of Ren, and they served their purpose to give the black cloaked harbingers of death the power they needed to turn the tide of any battle.

The Knights of Ren however were not always so lethal or highly esteemed in the galaxy, Kylo reflected to himself as he observed Praetorius clip the Dark Sabre to his belt.

When Snoke sought to expand his cadre of shadowy assassins to do what the average stormtrooper or commando could not, he came to know of Praetorius and his steadily expanding clan of self-made assassins. Praetorius was a con-artist born in the slums of the lowest levels of 1313 on Coruscant, the seediest most ill-reputed part of the cityscaped planet. He eventually found his calling in bounty hunting and intimidation, being an aspiring but ultimately failed actor in his youth. He founded the so-called House of Ren, owing inspiration to the Mandalorian Clan Wren, as a front for assassins and murderers for hire, deciding to make a name for himself and touting himself as a highborn warrior of class and sophistication.

Of course, this too was a front, and sometimes when he got angry or fumbled and found himself out of his element, his less than formal side had a habit of surfacing, and everyone was reminded of where Praetorius really came from. For all his attempts to distinguish himself, Praetorius was no count of Serenno.

So it came to pass that when Kylo became Snoke's apprentice, that Praetorius was placed as second in command of his own clan. An exchange of hands that, obviously for all involved, did not run smoothly with Praetorius. Hence his ceaseless efforts to ingratiate himself as a friend to Kylo, in a bid to elevate his lofty position of privilege.

Even Director Krennic, builder of the first Death Star who desired to be Palpatine’s confidante had standards…

The stir of robes and the sound of boots squelching in the mud brought Kylo back to the present.  
“Sir, the woman-” Raptorus warned.

Kylo turned, instinctively moving aside his crackling lightsabre to strike. Damn it, how did he let his guard down like a novice and let-  
The woman was close, uncomfortably close, and he looked down to see only one, two- three buns formed along the back of her head. Dark brunette hair.   
Kylo prepared himself for the sensation of being cut, to be electrocuted, kicked, anything, knowing that she was too close, within the space between his lightsabre and his body, and as Snoke would likely chastise him later on, would be another scar to add to his body to remind him of his failures.

Kylo braced-

And instead, pressing into his rancor leather robe, looping under his arms and cloak-

The woman pressed herself close to him, holding him in a gentle but certain grip.

Was she going to throw him? What was she-

The sniffling was heard again. A weight pressed against his chest as the woman pressed the left side of her head against his chest.

Her hands groped feebly on his wide back, and her head rubbed against his chest. Kylo’s heart leapt in his chest. His breath failed him quicker than any force-crushed victim’s windpipe did.

He was stunned, speechless, and apparently so were his Knights, astonished at the boldness of this woman who just approached the Master of their Order and…embraced him.

“I…” Kylo stumbled to find his words. He wanted to shout. He wanted to yell at the woman and force-push her into the dirt, for even daring to humiliate him in front of his own warriors, for daring to come to him and be as familiar as friend. Kylo had no friends. He was the heir apparent of Darth Vader, the right hand of the Dark Side incarnate. 

At the very least, it was just…weird…to have this woman, wet and sweaty and soaking from the rain just come to him and-

It was like being a lovestruck, gangly teenager again…

Lovestruck…

“Th…thank you…” the woman whimpered. “Thank you…thank you…” Her words dissolved into a silent fit of sobbing, wet and wrenching in her chest. Kylo felt it. He felt every moment of his heart…no her heart…breaking and crumbling into tiny pieces in her chest as she sobbed into his chest.

She was so small compared to him, the top of her head coming up under his chin. There was strength in her but by the force…the pain that was in her…

Kylo could feel it in his chest. This breaking…this sensation of falling apart, the words he had heard her mind speak in self-loathing.

_What happened to her?_

_What…_

“My Lord.” Praetorius’s dis-ingenuine voice wafted into his focus.

And Kylo suddenly felt an uncharacteristically feral urge to slice off his Second’s jaw to silence his words.

“Please, forgive us our lapse in our constant vigilance. She should not have even been allowed to come near you. I will remove this…clearly irrational woman who is…deep shock-”

“You will not do anything.” Kylo replied, his anger at the skull-helmed warrior rising like a hungry tempest.

“But, but sir,” Praetorius insisted. “Surely, this woman, clearly in shock, is an ignorant commoner who does not know of the glory of the Knights of Ren, or that we do not trouble ourselves over any…dirt-stained peasants who would weigh us down with their petty sentiments. She is obviously, as is her wont as a woman, taken leave of her senses and must be sternly corrected.”

“Leave of her senses as a woman?” Adara’s voice chimed in, and Praetorius nearly stumbled over a corpse as he turned to bear the attention of the Twin Sisters of Ren. 

“Have you something to say to us of our nature as women?” Aexa growled, ever the darker one of the pair.

“Now, now...” Praetorius lifted his arms up to protest, noticeably wincing under his helm as his right arm, bruised at the shoulder from the blaster shot, stayed lower than the left. “I can assure you that I do not of course include present company...”

“The present company? As in us and not the girl? Are we not like women to you, or do we not match to your lofty ideals, Lord Praetorious?” Adara asked, the airy, fae like tone of her voice making her risky question and the threat behind it no less dangerous.

“Or is it that you do not care for any woman, and seek only to justify your ideals and beliefs, holding only a double standard to permit such priggish thoughts to begin with?” Aexa replied with a tone that could strip durasteel to the barest molecule.

“N-now see here…” Praetorious stumbled. “You two are not like normal women and therefore do not…no wait that’s not what I meant-”

“Hmph. Keep digging, Praetorius.” Raptorus snorted and shrugged to himself as his scoped helm shook with tired derision at his former leaders bumbling. He kept his rifle primed, but his stance had noticeably relaxed.

The sound of two heavy footsteps came around, and Invictus’s huge form blocked Kylo’s view of Praetorius, as he growled with poorly hidden impatience.

“Enough of this. Master. Allow me to deal with this bottom-feeding peasant girl and teach her permanently to never touch a Knight of Ren.”

He lifted his long bladed axe to his shoulder.

“Perhaps I’ll take one of her pretty hands for even daring to touch-”

“No.”

Kylo raised his left hand, pinching Invictus’s wind pipe through the force with his forefinger and thumb.

Invictus stopped where he stood, and his grip on the axe he held loosened as he lifted his hands to his thick throat, beginning to rake at it with his claws. The wet gargling sound of Invictus’s throat constricting under the grip of the Force-choke Kylo used made his darkened soul soar with elation. The power he commanded would defeat any and all of his foes no matter how large or deadly they were.

The Force created balance, in that it allowed the truly gifted to dominate the brutish simpletons of the galaxy with fear and power, and now Kylo used it to put Invictus in his place. He had intended to try and crush Praetorius’s throat, but sadly he had not done enough to justify it. Invictus on the other hand was a mad dog in need of kennelling.

Invictus gasped for his breath, his lung straining as his throat strained to let him breathe. Then he toppled and landed on his knees with a splash in the mud, still clawing at his neck.  
“M…master…please…”

Then Praetorius was in front of him.

“My lord, we understand.” He spoke with his cool rapidly disappearing from his modulated voice. “None of us will touch the girl. Now please, release him. He is one of our most useful members and it would not do to just kill him.”

Kylo looked him directly in the eye. Praetorius was the same imposing height as he was and of a similar build, but he averted his gaze and cowered before his stare.

Kylo looked at Invictus, leaving him held under his power for a moment longer, bringing him to the threshold of fading from consciousness.

And then let go.

Invictus fell to his hands, coughing violently. The sound of his throat spasming as he tried to recover his breathing was synthesised through the filter of his mask, like a dying droid, like a cyborg on the verge of death.

“What Praetorius and Invictus are voicing here, my lord.” Raptorus approached him, holding his repeating rifle in his hands. “is that this is highly irregular. What is it exactly you intend to do with this…this…scavenger. If I may be so bold…”

Kylo’s words nearly failed him as the woman’s hold on his body grew even tighter. She was whispering something, murmuring, whimpering into his chest.

She shivered, a shaky, trembling breath escaping her that even through the layer of his robe, Kylo felt it wash over him.

Kylo…didn’t know…

He had no reason right now to justify why…he couldn’t just leave her here. He didn’t want to, even though he knew he should.

If Hux saw him now…if Snoke saw him now…indecisive over potentially taking in this scavenger like some kind of…pet…

The Twins suddenly padded gracefully in front of him. They looked directly at the girl, who did nothing to break away from her hold of Kylo or acknowledge the others around her.

They tilted and cocked their insectoid like helmets, one side to the other. The species that the Twins originated from could extend their mental bond to temporarily share the thoughts of others between them, not entirely unlike the use of the Force to probe or sense one’s thoughts.

“She is…afraid…” Adara spoke.

“Filled with bitter anger.” Aexa replied, and as before, they spoke again in concert, Adara speaking the first half of the sentence and Aexa finishing the other half.

“She wants to go back to a village...” 

“…To see a man named Lor San Tekka.”

“A priest of the Force…”

“…He kept her safe and was like a father to her.”

“But the village was scared of her…

“… Drove her out like a beast.”

“They feared her power.”

“…They feared that it would bring the Jedi Hunters of the First Order to their homes.”

“So she was forced to strike out on her own…”

“…become a scavenger like the rest of the homeless people.”

“She is a fighter and a survivor…”

“…She has killed to protect herself and others.”

“She has seen what happens to women who cannot defend themselves…”

“…She will die before being trapped in a cage and sold like a trophy.”

“Unkar Plutt became her new master, but he was no father…”

“…he made her climb into dangerous sharp places to find objects of value.”

“If she did not find anything from the dead ships, she would go the night hungry…”

“…she starved for many nights hating the world and Unkar Plutt.”

“She grew strong and able to climb, fast and brave and willing…”

“…she forged a staff of recycled ship parts to defend her prize.”

“But when she gets angry, Plutt would get angrier…”

“…he would send his thugs to teach her respect.”

“Sometimes she would win the fight…”

“…but sometimes she did not.”

“She lies and tells them she’ll be good, she’ll be good and never do it again…”

“…and every night she cries herself to sleep nursing a fresh bruise.”

“She misses Lor San Tekka…”

“… but she also hates the stupid old man for not protecting her when he should have.”

“So much pain…”

“…so much anger.”

“A maelstrom of emotion, a yearning to be free…”

“…a raging heart against the galaxy, a desire to never be weak again.”

“She is a woman…”

“…in a man’s world.”

“One day she had enough and told Unkar she was leaving…”

“…they beat her and snapped her staff in two.”

“They dragged her out into the desert to die…”

“…She bit one of their ears off when one of them offered to keep her as a personal slave.”

“She has been wondering the desert for two weeks….”

“…She should have died after the first day without water.”

“But something kept her going. Something pushed her to live…”

“…her head pounds from dehydration. Her stomach aches to be fed.”

“Lor San told her she was special. She tried to find the village, tried to use her secret that he told her never to use…”

“…but instead it led her here, to rain, blood, mud and death.”

“She wanted to live…”

“…but she was ready to die.”

“Enough!” Kylo shook his head.

_Too much…the images...the words…the pain, the loneliness, the burning sun, the sand, the feeling of falling from when she slipped, metal shards cutting into his palm, her palm, the mocking laughter of men drunk and leering at her, Unkar shouting in her face too close to shut her up, the staff making callouses in her palms as she trains harder, fights harder, kicks harder, screams harder, loud enough so that one day they’ll all go away-_

_but they don’t they never do and one day or one night when she lets her guard down they’ll get her and there’s no one out here you can depend on or rely on please I want to go I don’t belong here I don’t belong here I don’t belong here please help please help I don’t want to die I don’t want to be sold I don’t want to die I don’t want to be sold I don’t want to die-_

“Enough…” He softly spoke, banishing the thoughts, knowing fully well that his subconscious probe had gone too deep.

The Twins were silent, and stepped back as one, easily stepping over the corpse that nearly tripped Praetorius with that supernatural grace of theirs.

Raptorus was there again, and he was looking at the woman.

“Um…my Lord…”

Kylo looked down, as he felt again the woman’s arms pressing his back and ribcage, arms filled with lithe muscle.

His left free hand that was just choking Invictus was pressed against her back. Under his black leather glove, he felt the flimsy thin sheen of the robe over the under tunic.

“You ugh…” Raptorus took the moment to clarify. “Your hand sort of just…moved there when the Twins started doing their…whatever it was they do.” He finished with a droll shrug.

Kylo looked away. One of the many practicalities of the helmet was its miraculous abilities to hide emotion.

He had to salvage this. He had to appear unshakeable in his confidence as a leader of the most zealous and deadly warrior band the First Order had in their service.

So he addressed his men in arms.

“Return to the shuttle.”

“The shuttle…but why?” Praetorius asked.

“We have a new lead.” Kylo explained. “This woman knows Lors San Tekka. The very same Vicar of the Church of the Force. The same vicar whom the First Order have had run-ins with on other systems, for crimes of speaking out against the rule of the Supreme Leader. If the map is anywhere on this planet, it will be with him, if he is on this planet. He has a village here, likely masquerading as a base of operations for the Resistance to conceal his fellow dissidents, or perhaps it is his real home.”

Kylo made sure as he scanned his head across the various array of deathly black masks before him that he had the Knight’s complete attention.

“If he is not at the village, we must draw him back, and if he is still on this planet, we must draw him out. Do you understand what our new goal is now?”

“Of course, my Lord!” Praetorius replied, eagerly catching on. “Your logic is undeniable. Keeping this scavenger in our company may well prove to be the link we need to finally obtaining the map to Skywalker.” 

“And if he refuses to surface when we find his village…there are ways of making people talk.” Invictus growled under his helm.

“Assuming we want to save ourselves another day of boiling in our robes in this force-forsaken desert, we need to get the location of this village from the girl.” Raptorus suggested. “If she refuses to give up the old man…” He spoke with a grim zeal equal to Invictus.

Kylo felt fear stab into his heart. He resisted the urge to draw his arm up closer, keeping the girl close to him.

“That will be for me to resolve.” Kylo spoke, keeping his voice steady and his blade by his side. “I will deal with the girl and extract from her what I need to know. Once I do…”

He looked about at his knights again as he spoke.

“We will have a new target.” He spoke with relish in his voice.

“And then the hunt can begin anew…” Adara dreamily spoke.

“…and our blades shall drink fresh blood once again.” Aexa completed.

“We’ll crush that lying traitor’s neck!” Invictus snarled and punched his fist into his hand.

“And any who dare protect him.” Praetorius snarled.

“Glory be to Snoke!” Raptorus dutifully spoke.

“Glory be to the First Order!” The knights echoed in return, drawing and raising their weapons aloft.

“To the shuttle.” Kylo nodded, once the shout of devotion had died down. “Twins, plot a course back to the Finaliser. Praetorius, order Hux to set up a communique to the Supremacy. I would speak to the Supreme Leader.” 

“As you say, so it shall be.” The Knights addressed responded in kind, and one by one they left him to step over the bodies of the Kyuzo and through the rain, they began to make their way towards the Raven, the great winged shuttle docked a mile away.

Praetorius was the last to go, and he gave a courteous nod to Kylo before disappearing behind him, his wet footsteps stomping through the mud and the muddles.

And finally, Kylo was alone with the scavenger in his arms.

The rain continued to fall.

Kylo looked down at the scavenger.

He deactivated his lightsabre, the blade retreating into the handle, and slung it onto his belt, where a magno-clip kept his lightsabre in place.

And what to do with her…

Kylo remembered of course that he had his cloak still attached to his shoulders.

“Girl.”

The woman did not move.

“Girl…look at me.” He commanded bluntly.

The head with the three small buns eventually moved. It detached itself from his chest to look up with wide eyes like the does on Yavin IV.

She began to shiver. Her bottom lip trembled, and he felt her fingers pull against his robe as she gripped his tunic tightly.

“I have a cloak.” Kylo spoke. “I will take you back to my ship where temporary quarters will be prepared for you.”

The woman trembled again and gasped sharply. Her mouth moved as she continued to look up at him yet she did not speak.

“P…please…” She begged, almost so small a noise that Kylo nearly didn’t hear it. 

“Don’t hurt me…”

Kylo felt the fear rolling off of her in waves that filled his senses with adrenaline, anger, and the need to chase it away and drive this evil presence away.

Kylo knew fear…and knew that to be imprisoned by fear was not a life worth living. 

And the look of her, the fire inside her…there was something behind her eyes, something buried deep that smouldered like an ember, ready to be reignited…

Her fear had nearly broken her spirit, but it could not destroy her will. Not entirely. In her was a will to live. 

“I will take you to my ship.” Kylo spoke. “You will be reclothed and fed. Then I will need you to help me find something very important to me. Can you do that?”

“I…I…” the woman spoke. She was unsure. Hesitant. Perhaps she had heard the words and threats of the knights surrounding her.

“What is your name?” Kylo spoke. He would debate the semantics and ethics of hunting for a map to turn the tide in a time of war that had gripped the galaxy in chaos later on.

The woman searched for his eyes under his deeply polarised visor. Kylo could see perfectly well and at a brighter light thanks to the visuo-receptors in his mask, but his eyes were hidden by a sheen of black.

Her hands left his jacket, and he could see the tips of her fingers under his visor as she feebly ghosted over the grooves of his helm.

“I can’t see your face.” The woman croaked… “Are you a dream?”

“What is your name, scavenger?” Kylo spoke, but in a softer tone. Too young, too young and beautiful to live on this savage world. 

His hand was still pressed against the small of her back.

“I’m…I’m…” the woman spoke in reply, and faltered.

Her feet swayed, and her boots gave out from under her as she fell to her right side. Kylo felt her mind slip under the foggy murk of unconsciousness and moved immediately, his left arm out to support her. He planted his legs in a striding motion to balance out the weight as his right hand grabbed her side.

“Easy…” He spoke.

“Mmm…not a scavenger…mm…” The woman spoke, her exhaustion finally catching up to her. “Mm no-one…”

“You have a name…tell it to me.” Kylo spoke, compelled to know it. She had to have a name, something that she was called. She must have had parents, someone who loved her, anything.

The dusty robed woman, soaked in rain, looked up at the sky with lidded eyes.

“…Rey…my name is Rey…”

And then her head lolled to the side as her eyes closed.

_Rey…_

Kylo remembered his cloak. Holding Rey by his left arm under her shoulders, he unclipped the huge flowing farbric with a silk inlay, hoping most of it was dry from his exertions and being spun about him in his fight with the enforcers. 

He waved his arm over her and wrapped the cloak around her, slipping it under his left arm to shelter her back and arms, and the rest around her legs. Once she was wrapped, Kylo knelt and curled his right arm under her knees, and lifted.

She was lighter than he realised, a worrying sign that perhaps she had not eaten enough in her sparse diet of rations, if what he had heard about Unkar Plutt’s ‘payment methods’ was to be believed.

Kylo turned and walked with Rey wrapped in his black cloak towards the Raven.

Let the Knights stare and ask their questions. Let Hux sputter and protest and…on second thought, perhaps it would be best to avoid letting Hux know for the time being that the Finaliser would be hosting a guest from the junker desert planet below. He would be absolutely livid, maybe burst a blood vessel in his face like Mast…like Skywalker once did on the first Death Star.

Kylo stepped over the last body and followed the distant forms of the Knights of Ren, blurry outlines in the bleak darkness of the rainy night.

A brief deluge fell on him, soaking into the back of his neck under his helmet and onto Rey, and she whimpered in his arms, shivering. Kylo used the force to briefly lift her in his arms, and then command the cloak to fully wrap around her and shield her form. Soon all that was exposed were the tips of her boots, and her brow and eyebrows.

 _Hold on._ He spoke to her through the force, knowing that perhaps she wouldn’t be able to hear them in her unconscious state.

But then she curled up further in his arms, wrapped in his cloak, and Kylo could feel the subsiding heartbeat, its quivering muscle subsiding in thankful rest after being so drastically tested.

The heartbeat of a survivor…

And if what the twins saw was to also to be believed…a possessor of a powerful secret…

So he adjusted his hold of her, carrying her in his cloak the way a groom would carry a bride in some elaborate wedding ceremony in his cloak.

_Hold on, scavenger…_

_You’re safe now…_

_Nothing will ever hurt you again…_

_I will not allow it…_

_Hold on…_

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so...  
> What do you think?
> 
> Leave a kudos and a review and I hope to see you all in the next upload of No Words Are Needed!


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